What do I need?

[Kim Johnsson]

Dclan wrote:

>   So what do I need?  Do I need a new sound card with more inputs?  Do I
> need a new mixer with separate outputs?  How do you guys do it?

A year ago or so I bought a FireFace 800 and two Behringer ADA 8000's,
and the mixing now happens in a convenient virtual console, mostly
set-and-forget style. Great routing possibilities through a matrix
mixer, anything anywhere.

I usually monitor the hardware live through their own monitoring Sonar
tracks with all the FX plugins working realtime. Latency is quite
acceptable. The PC is still the weakest link, the VST FX kill it
sooner ofter than later. Nothing a bounce can't fix, though. I'm
really happy with my "mixerless" setup; I do miss a convenient master
volume fader, though. Now I'm running everything through a hardware
equaliser to a pair of active monitors, and I'm using the EQ's volume
fader, but it's suboptimal.

Cheers,

Kim